iPhone App Video Review: Feed Me Oil

Feed Me Oil is the latest game from Chillingo, made by HolyWater games. It’s a puzzle game that involves building Rube Goldberg style machines to guide a bunch of oil into the mouth of strange creatures that are part of the environment or something. It’s a clever and polished title that is definitely worth looking into.

The gameplay consists of placing various objects that will affect the oil in different ways, such as platforms, fans, and magnets. You can place them anywhere on a level and rotate them to face any direction. After setting up your path, you let the oil loose from the broken pipe and watch as it unexpectedly spirals out of the level. Then you adjust the pieces you’ve placed and you try again, and again, until you get the black gold to the goal. Obviously this is a big trial and error game. The liquid physics actually behave how you would expect them to, which was nice. While some levels can be ridiculously challenging, it all works out if you just keep at it.

Or you can just use hints to beat the level for you. Every level has some number of hints that show you exactly where to place certain pieces, until the level is actually beaten for you. The only cost of using a hint is a thirty second wait until the next hint, though it is possible to unlock all the hints in the game with an in-app purchase. If you’re going to cheat though, I say do it for free. Some levels are real head-scratchers, and I was lost without hints, while others were very beatable with my own brain power. You can always choose not to use them for some real challenge.

The art and music are heavily inspired by World of Goo, which also had a lot to do with black liquid, though the gameplay was completely different. The art still looks great though, even if it is unoriginal. The music also seems to have the same inspiration, but it kind of got on my nerves in this game. The game integrates the Crystal network for leaderboards and achievements, and if you gift the game to people you can unlock extra levels. All in all, this is a very well put together game, with many elements from other great games combined to make a fun experience. Coming in at only one dollar, check it out if it seems like your kind of deal.